St George Daly (1758 – December 1829) was an Irish judge, who had a reputation for ignorance of the law. He owed his career advancement entirely to his support for the Act of Union 1801, which did nothing to enhance his standing in the legal profession. Background He was the fifth son of James Daly MP, of Carrownakelly and Dunsandle, by his second wife Catherine Gore, daughter of Sir Ralph Gore, 4th Baronet and Elizabeth Ashe, daughter of St George Ashe, Bishop of Derry and Jane St. George. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1783. Denis Daly, a much respected but short-lived politician, was his eldest brother. The Dalys were a long-established landowning family in County Galway. Though traditionally Roman Catholics, and of Gaelic origin, they managed to hold onto their lands by embracing the Protestant faith and abandoning their previous loyalty to the Stuart dynasty. Career In January 1798 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons as one of the two Members of Parliament for the pocket borough of Galway. When the Irish House of Commons was abolished by the Act of Union 1800, (which Daly strongly supported) Galway's representation was reduced to one. The other MP, George Ponsonby, resigned, leaving Daly as the sole MP. He became Prime Serjeant-at-law in 1799, much against the wishes of the legal profession, who had greatly admired his predecessor James Fitzgerald (1742-1835); Fitzgerald had been dismissed for opposing the Union. He was appointed to the Irish Privy Council on 16 December 1800. He was the first MP for Galway Borough in the new House of Commons of the United Kingdom but vacated his seat on 21 February 1801 on appointment as a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland); John Brabazon Ponsonby was elected to succeed him on 10 March. On 3 November 1803 he transferred from the Court of Exchequer to the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), serving until his resignation in 1822. He was one of the judges at the trials following the Robert Emmet Rebellion in 1803. He presided in 1817 at the trial of the eccentric writer Roger O'Connor for highway robbery, and is said to have pressed hard for an acquittal. O'Connor was duly found not guilty, though public suspicion about his guilt never died. Reputation The reputation of the Irish Bench in